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Gaia Holmes

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The Alchemist

Curved over the wheel
chunks of clay changed
to delicate brown lilies
and grew out of the coil
of his hands;
blunt fingers coaxed
stalks into vases.
Bowls went into the kiln
coated in coarse white paste
and came out glowing;
he left them crackling
and cooling on the lawn.
In the morning
they had turned into jewels
gleaming like huge beetles
against the shaved grass.

He was always pale
and ghosted with clay;
smelling of wood-smoke and porcelain,
beads of white china
hardened and hung like pearls
in his ginger beard.

Sometimes I'd play
whilst he spun and moulded;
make earthenware cakes,
slice them like fudge
with the cheese wire
and when I'd finished
he'd shape his hands into a bowl
I'd rinse my fists
until the water turned to milk
and dripped through his fingers.

At Christmas his gifts come to me
packed in gold curls of sawdust;
wisps of Raku smoke
cling to dishes
glazed with ox-blood-red
and lapis-lazuli.

And as the urban breeze
stalks and rattles my street,
his wheel hums and whirrs
over the roar of Shapinsay winds.
He baptises fire
with brine.

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